


Habits

by TheLiminality



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Addiction, Angst, Asexual Sherlock, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Everyone is a bit scared, Gay Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, Light Dom/sub, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, Original Character(s), POV First Person, POV Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-21 12:39:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1550789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLiminality/pseuds/TheLiminality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I could only stand the version of me that existed with you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Binge [Alcohol + Cocaine]

**Author's Note:**

> Hello readers! I am planning on having this be a novel length fic, and have fifteen chapters planned currently. This is my first time indulging myself and not simply writing a one shot. Which is shockingly a scary prospect. I will be updating every Sunday + Wednesday (or near or close to) with a new chapter.
> 
> Please, please be warned that this chapter, and the following chapters, deal with drug use and heavy descriptions of drug use. If this is triggering you, please give this fic a pass. I realize the nature of this fic is extremely heavy, and I will be posting trigger warnings at the start of each chapter. 
> 
> In this chapter; Drug use, extreme descriptions of drug use, mental illness/addiction (not stated upfront but made obvious)
> 
> Thank you to my lovely beta, Em, who can be found here maraudertrouble.tumblr.com
> 
> My tumblr; Fargogo.tumblr.com
> 
> Please leave comments or a kudos, feedback is always appreciated!

  I have been told, over odd stretches of time not many could grow accustomed to in a lifetime, that I am truly, inevitably, internally sensitive. I've convinced himself deeply enough that this was a poetic attempt at others making myself more approachable.

 Maybe if they pushed just right, I’d show them something more.

Possibly if they became close to me, They’d see blood beneath my skin.  
Hopefully they’d make a friend.

 Of course, over this span of time, many learned that these molded-facts and explorations into empathetic psychological actions, the outcomes stay quite stagnant. They were offered nothing more than a peek into what my ‘humanity’ must be in it’s true form. One person has managed to get passed it all. And that is precisely why I am in this situation of sorts. I have never been good at cultivating emotions and applying them logically to verify the nature of actions. Then again, I don’t truly remember how to tie up shoelaces or how black holes exist, so this information was not necessary for thought based survival. This did not mean I am void. No. These so called “sensitivities” are spent like wars waged on myself at five AM when no one else could witness the internal body count that raised day by day. Dramatic, isn't it? Though I’d be lying if I wrote this up to be any different than it truly is. My nerves collide, my bones bend, and my brain grasps at straws conveniently placed in the center of my rib-cage. Where fingers can’t pry or purge the infection out.

  Perhaps that is why, after fifteen years of disliking the compound, I chose alcohol as my poison. (OH- bound to a carbon atom. Warm. Toxic. Warm.). It reminds me of you, after all. How you’d get home from the surgery and have an obscenely large glass of wine (like your sister). The scent of it would waft off of you in waves since your internal body temperature may as well be an impossible fever. Filling four corners of the room with an odd mixture of acidic spice.

 

 I imagine nothing of the sort as I swig from the bottle in my right hand.

 

That is the joy of using, you see. People (typically uneducated, simple minded people. IE: most of the population) considers alcohol and drug use as a form of self-destruction. This is not the case, however. It is a form of self discovery. From the mundane (How long can I last without crashing to the floor? How close can I get myself to oblivion? The likelihood of an overdose? Would that hurt intoxicated?) to the inquisitive (How much fracturing can a single body take? When did it all become too loud? Am I wavering?). There is something to be discovered within needle injections, white ambiguous powders, dip dyed over priced liquor bottles. You can’t help being a philosopher after a chemical permeates your blood-brain barrier with it’s sharp clinical taste.There is no longer a single thing to fear. Why fear the external world when your own internal world is suddenly so pleasing and pliable?

  
Of course it is temporary. Do you think people who use drugs and use again do so for convenience? I had it once. I want it again.

And again.  
And again.

 

  I've sprawled myself out onto the sitting room floor. My feet are conveniently covered by the coffee table, as the thought of being dragged in a hallucination isn't pleasing in the slightest. There are no track-marks because I avoided the use of hypodermic needles. Someone is always bound to notice. Always. That is why the nose is such an opportune area for cocaine consumption. Not my favourite. Far from it. Hiding the evidence is much easier though.

Snort  
Wipe  
Place the extra onto your gums

Not a soul needs to know. Ritualistic behaviours practiced in private only reinforce this faded idea of control. I am controlling this. I am in charge of how detached I become. Of how detached I need to become. I may not be able to rid of this infection, but I can fool my body into believing it’s free.

That I am endless.  
That I am good enough. (delete when able*)

  It doesn't, however, cleanse your thoughts completely (only for ten to fifteen minutes). You can’t poison your own conscious, can you? It can’t bring you away from why this happened in the first place. Mixing a depressant with a psychostimulant tends to lead you down the path of limbo. An in between of rising above myself and being instantly dragged down by the god damn thought, the thing, that brought me here.

That it is endless.  
That I was never good enough. (delete when able*)

 

 I have realized in my time living alone (again, currently) even when my body vibrates with a substance bestowed to me from a fictional heavens, I will fall back into a mute cycle. I begin to doubt my personal presence among “friends”, strangers, even my homeless. I carry myself in a way that makes people notice me. I speak in a voice I am sure others will hear, respect, and never doubt. I forget that in the midst of it all, I can’t stand it all the time. It may be the very reason I am alone again now. Shaking on the tattered carpet masking me from a splintering wooden floor, with no one to see, no one to speak to. No one to really care if I distinguish the flames I keep around my person at all times. I wasn't good enough. That is the fact of the matter.

I wasn't good enough to keep… I simply wasn't.

 I drown it the moment his name runs through my conscious with the bottle. Bleaching it away every time my body attempts a gag reflex to protect itself from further damage. It’s easy to ignore when a hole starts forming at the base of your neck that will soon consume you whole.

I wish it would. I will not complain. I will not feel shame or inherent disgust.

I won’t feel.  
And that is very much the point.

 It stays that way when I stand and it feels as though I am walking through knee high wet sand deposits. I grasp at everything in my reach. The centre of my brain melts to a mush, causing a disorienting dizziness that I can’t fathom into a readable sentence. My head rushes with blood it’s gone without, followed by a euphoria. A feeling that one gets when standing with their toes right on the edge of something dangerous, deadly, and somehow living long enough to recount the feeling when they see fit. There is no pain here. I couldn't even begin extended my arms just so my fingers can graze against the idea of it and feel the sharp edges. There is nothing to see, or feel, as vision bleaches into a bright opaque white.

It’s a bliss that reduces the name stained within your grey matter to a plausible whisper. Something that may very well be true. I am thankful for it, even if I know the high will only last ten minutes at most. My fingers are numb from it as my hands attempt to pinch the papered walls into my palm. Useless, that. I still end up falling. Which ends in me hitting my head against the corner of the hallway. I believe I would mind if I could feel the sharp intake of breath or my nerves lighting on fire. For now, however, it is all numb. It’s a gift.

I do, eventually, make it to my room. Sitting in the middle of the bed, I dose myself one more time with the supplies that remain left over as a residue in a small plastic jewelry bag. There is no point in snorting such a small amount, so I stick my finger into the bag, then against my own lips. Paying special attention to massage against my teeth as it is hypnotic and sensory pleasing.

 You would be disgusted. Veil it in the form of concern, but without coming within five feet of me. It’s almost easier than dealing with your disappointed tones. Right now, instead, I supplement your words and our discussion for myself. All words slipping away from me to fill the stagnant air around me in some form of comfort. Fool myself until I am absolved.

 “You’re going to kill yourself.” Your voice rushes into the space,

“I know.”

“You want that, don’t you?”

“Possibly.”

  I’m not sure if the dry sob that wrecks me brings my mind out of it’s own designed hallucination. Or if it takes place right when I speak the last word. Either way, the pain returns. Again, and again. Flashing through me like bullets of which I have no defense again. I drown myself in the bedding. Attempting to run from myself.

 That is the problem.

That is why I’m like this.  
I’m always running.  
I could only stand the version of me that existed with you.

Bastard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tumblr (where I will be posting updates on my writing); Fargogo.tumblr.com
> 
> Song listened to while constructing this fic/writing this chapter; Habits (Stay High) by Trove Lo
> 
> Please leave a kudos or comment, I appreciate and need feedback!


	2. Promiscuity [Sex + Uppers]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was always fairly easy. I know I am good looking, that stares linger over me a bit longer than possibly the normal or common person. In my younger years at University, I’d see hands twitch my direction. I could read off of them how they wanted to hold my hips. Stroke the ball of the joint with their thumbs (or teeth). Of course, it was a pointless endeavor. I had no true interest in intimate activities with a stranger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains sex/Light BDSM involving a repulsed asexual person (Sherlock). It is all consensual, but it is a heavy theme in this chapter, so if that's not something you're comfortable with, give this chapter a pass. It also involves drug use and descriptions of drug use. 
> 
> Thank you to em, my wonderful Beta.

  This was always fairly easy. I know I am good looking, that stares linger over me a bit longer than possibly the normal or common person. In my younger years at University, I’d see hands twitch my direction. I could read off of them how they wanted to hold my hips. Stroke the ball of the joint with their thumbs (or teeth). Of course, it was a pointless endeavor. I had no true interest in intimate activities with a stranger. It happened, surely. On nights where there wasn’t enough money to give for a small bag of temporary happiness, I could offer straddling their hips while grinding down on premature erections in form of a trade. Put on a show, moan loudly to the simplest of touches. Kiss them like I could stand them. Manipulate them when blood runs low through the brain and receive more for free. They are far more desperate than you.

 That is why it is so _easy_ to abuse such a virtue.

  With older men, it is never a conquest for me. For them it is. It has to be. For me it is simply remembering how to pretend to be interested. That is why, standing three blocks away from a school, is almost too easy to be fair. I know the statistics of male adulterers in Great Britain (out of 4,000, people 3,000 were male identifying), finding those who wish to contribute to their own gratification is no trouble. Finding those interested in sucking a pill from between your teeth is, not so surprisingly, easier.

 

  Which is how I find myself where I am now. A man in his forties was easy to get over without saying a damn word (look somewhat intimidated. Act submissive). He has short brown hair, is a few inches shorter than me, and refuses to tell me his name. He has been married for Eighteen years. Going by his suit, he’s been in a depressive episode for at least three months. Going by the grey hairs, he’s been chronically stressed out nearly his whole adult life. His wife is having numerous affairs, as well. Or he wouldn't bother attempting to hide his wedding ring. It makes him feel ashamed. This doesn't stop him asking me if he can suck on my neck after a mere three minutes of conversation. He already knows I am not searching for payment of any kind. Company. Company is how I sell it. With my back against the brick wall of a hidden alleyway while my skin is pinched into his mouth, I stare off in hopes of something happening. I inhale sharply as his teeth work to get my attention. Bruising deeper with each breath. I do not complain… I am rather enjoying it. It’s another fix, after all. I am primarily an asexual human being. Asexual does not, however, mean abstinent. It won’t ever mean that I’ll go without a fix when I need it. If I convince myself I need it. Desperate middle aged men have it existing as an easily obtained commodity.

  We get a cab after the bout of fooling around. It’s there that I remove the three pills from my pocket. He gets one, I give myself two. “Uppers”, as they are casually called. Quite refreshing after a bout of depressants. I always crave it after liquor, apparently as much as I ‘crave’ a stranger. With not much normalized or normative dignity, I slide a hand between his legs while sucking against his bottom lip, though none of it comes with a sense of ease.

 I enjoy the wait. How it feels when the substance finally permeates the system. Suddenly everything moves quickly, limbs numb out, pleasure grows steadily. Emphasized by pain. Which is why I seek out the dominate types. The kind that will push me around within my limits. Dose out pain like a controlled substance used only to reward me or punish me, yet leave me shattered in a brilliant way no matter the consequence of action.

 

 

  I would have picked you out.  
  You wouldn't do the same with me.

  
  I would thank you for it.

 

Once the ‘medication’ kicks in, we are at his flat, I am here but there and not so much endless as I am constantly present. “Call me ‘Sir’,” he slurs as he takes hold of the back of my neck. I kiss him again when he sits me at the side of the bed, spreading my legs in form of an invitation he willingly takes. I rock forward, he pulls back. Scolds me with a voice far too soft. I do it again.

 It was a simple manipulation.

 Which is how I ended up over his knees, my trousers gone, pants followed. He isn't gentle thrashing me. No, far from it. Each smack thrusts me forward. Causes noises from deep within my chest. I rest my head in my arms, presenting myself perfectly while I buzz easily. Feigning cries to _“stop!”_ or _“Slow down!”_ (careful to avoid the discussed safe word), he wants to hear that.

 

    “It won't save you now, boy.” He deals another series of smacks.  
     “Will you save me then, Sir?” It’s said cheekily as my voice cracks,  
   “Not a soul can. Not now. Hush.”

 

  I laugh, Deeply, openly. What a thing to say. It bursts in colours behind my eyes. Shades that promote feelings of shame, inadequacy. Flowering with each and every shutter of my chest only to bloom further when my lungs expand and contract with the force of confused, manufactured pharmaceutical joy.

 This isn't the first time I've done this. Nor will it be the last, I am sure.. What a tempting thing it is, really. To strip down to nothing in the plainest of terms, giving yourself over to such an animistic nature you don’t even possess continuously. That you don’t even want. This wouldn't have began had I not met you. You, the one who managed to make me miss another living soul who was always there, just barely out of reach. I don’t even appreciate you like this. I wouldn't appreciate you like this, do you understand? I felt with you around me. I could expand to fill a room twelve times my size. I knew what it was like to smile without arguing and damming every muscle behind my facial features beyond recognition. It was so easy with you. With that version of myself I believed I was alive. Now, I’m not so sure.

  With my face pushed into the duvet, the strange man moving in and out of me, I can’t help but silently laugh over the fake moans and panting.

  I have tried to learn the ways I appreciate you, before.

 Once on my back with a twenty year old between my thighs. Again with a man your age below me. A third like this. The faces never matched up.Closing my eyes to imagine you working through me without an ounce of regret.

  Nothing happened.

  
    I felt nothing more than what I was feeling previously, though this time it was tinged with anxiety I couldn't really place.

 The faces, features, scars, never matched up because they were never meant to. It didn't matter how many times I brought someone to orgasm with fake pillow biting, or the promise drenched on my lips (parting theirs) that swore we’d have another meeting just like this. These strangers never stood much of a chance. Not because of you, no. I’ll just poison their consciousness long enough to make them question every action that brought them to pound into me so freely. Dosed up.

 I would cause regret.

    Breaking a home is easy when your own was demolished.

  The stranger finished inside of me with a satisfied moan, though I feel nothing similar in contrast. More of a beating would have been appreciated, nothing more. Especially with my skin on fire in such a way that I wish it was permanent. He throws away a condom, I dress. Not saying a word. It’s easier this way. To leave without a second thought. While you’re still high and ever so slightly above yourself.

 I know at the end of this all, this bender I am on, I’ll either be dead or enlightened. Saved by another who gives me far too much value. I walk down the street, pulling up my coat collar against the bitter breeze. Home. “Home”. Before then, though, I have to indulge in the feeling of disgust that washes over me the moment I exhale, as the reality crashes down onto my shoulders.

 I feel repulsed (every time this ends, I do. Every time someone touches me, I do.) poisoned, tricked, used. I find the nearest close-to-private place on the streets I can manage to dry heave until something manages to come up. One. Twice. Three times. Cleansing myself of this again and again until bile stains each and every inch of tissue behind my teeth.

 

_I hate this._

     The faces never matched up.

_I hate myself._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can be found on tumblr at: Fargogo.tumblr.com
> 
> Until next time.
> 
> \- Spencer


	3. Downers; Part One [Vicodin]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chemically compromised; all I can feel is the rush of a shadow, the fall of the world around me, and the silence that follows directly after.
> 
> It’s easy to find quiet when you’re no longer existing in the waking world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for drug use, ambiguous suicidal thoughts.
> 
> Part one is in Sherlock's POV;. Part two will be in Lestrades.

It typically ends like this. On an unmarked, unknown floor with my heart fading. Strange fingers on my eyelids prying them open to be blessed by a blazing light. Concerned sentences transforming into drawled vowels of words I’ve never heard. It’s such a mixture of joy and confusion, yet the confusion has no footing for the mind is occupied by the weightlessness. I am given the gift of buoyancy, where I can easily float above myself and my surroundings. If I do open my eyes and look carefully enough I can easily deconstruct the elements that have wrapped themselves around me. The only proof that they were there is the impressions that are left on my skin. Though no one else claims to see them, I know they are very much there. That they are very much genuine. 

The voice above me is rough in texture. Older. And going by the trace evidence of exacerbation painted against each syllable, it’s not the first time they’ve seen me like this. Which causes a laugh to escape the slowly collapsing confides of my chest. I know the voice is deploring my choices by all the times a velvety “tisk” is verbally pinned on the papered wall right over my head. What a poor soul, truly. Sometimes it is far too easy to lie. Too easy to contaminate and re-write the chemistry of a living being. Which is why I fall into it again and again. 

“I want to sleep now.” Is what I finally speak. I prate on for five minutes, preceding the fact that I am on the verge of unconsciousness. I can’t blame myself. The daily roles of living are nothing short of laborious. How demanding it is to smile when a certain word is said. To feel warm at the mention of “home” when contempt takes it’s place. It’s what flows through my mind as my tongue brushes the front of my teeth. Tasting easily the clinical taste of one or seven vicodin pills I force fed myself. It was a blur of an attempt at sleep. Far too disarranged to work, though it was completed on luck or will. 

“Sherlock. You can’t sleep.” The same strained voice speaks, this time however, working through the gears in my head clearly. Simplistically. I open my eyes, smiling again with misplaced euphoria. It’s Lestrade. I’ve not an idea why it was so hard to put the pieces together, it was quite an easy deduction. I feel almost ashamed at my lack of pliable ambition in easy deduction work. I grope the wall against me in attempts to sit up. I want to straighten out my spine (feel the cord beneath bone snap into it), but my upper body has forsaken it’s area of origin. Leaving me trying to grapple purchase against anything.

Lestrade grabs my shoulders after watching me struggle like a fish without water, and presses them easily against the wall to make sure my weak form takes to the new position. He sighs again, this time I feel every inch of the exhale. Doing the same for no reason whatsoever. A horrible sense of communication plagues me like this. Imitation is not easy when you willingly induce a neurological shut down.

“How many times are you going to do this?”. He sounds sad. Paternal. A fleeting sense of guilt weighs on me. But it’s just that. Disappointingly fleeting, leaving nothing behind in it’s wake. 

“Until it’s quiet”. Is my whispered reply. He tisks again, more worried than disappointed this time. He stands (he must have, with closed eyes I can sense the change in light. Distance.). It is confirmed when I feel a hand on my head. His fingers don’t grab at my hair or apply pressure. If I focus too much, it’s barely there at all. He’s just letting me know he is here. It’s charming, in it’s own odd, distorted way. Typical forms of friendship have never been a grace of mine. This is as close to the perpetuated idea of love that I have felt in months. 

How pathetic.  
ludicropathetic.

He speaks on the phone to a strange voice. This is never something someone wants to witness alone. If they do, they may find they enjoyy some part of it. A true test of self imposed morality the others seem to administer to themselves in large doses. It’s not something I have to concern myself with. I solved “The Trolley Problem” long ago when I agreed to throw myself in front of the trolley. Nothing lost. Nothing missed. 

“Sherlock, if you don’t start waking up, I’m takin’ you to hospital. So start working on it cause’ I don’t want to be dragging you around with your limbs flailing.”

He only warns me because he knows how it ended the last seven times. Bloody noses, elbowed ribs, bruised cheekbones. I would be useless in a true fight like this, but threaten me with confinement and there will be blood stains. 

I shake my head my head in attempts to make my disapproval with this plan clear. 

“Too bad. Wake the hell up.” 

I move my hands to my eyes, rubbing the blood shot pigments away to the best of my ability. Soothing the temporary voluntary blindness. Wake up, wake up.   
Feel something human.   
“Robot”.  
“Machine”.

Feel.

“There we go,” He says kneeling by my side again. This time informing others to stay well away. “Stay like this and we won't need to go anywhere, yeah?”. Any attempt at comfort. Which only means I have reached the pinnacle of pathetic behaviour. It is a downer for a reason. Everything drowns with you the moment the pill jolts you with a lazy and slow bloodstream. 

I suddenly feel very small. Quiet. Sickly. I want out of this body just to escape the patterns of a clearly broken mind that overworks itself endlessly all to prove that my bones do not rest on weak principles or lazy intentions. Naturally, I should be aware that I am worth more than that. 

Chemically compromised, all I can feel is the rush of a shadow, the fall of the world around me, and the silence that follows directly after.

It’s easy to find quiet when you’re no longer existing in the waking world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have chemotherapy tomorrow which means I am in a load of pain today but I tried to get a good chapter done. Please comment or leave kudos if you enjoyed/have feed back.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> \- Spencer


End file.
